THE GREAT ROPE TRICK: Police gathering clues after a major heist in a jewellery shop in the city on Tuesday. — PHOTO : P.V. Sivakumar

HYDERABAD : It was a silent heist indeed. Nobody -- the security guards of Alukkas Jewellery or the security guard of an adjacent building that was under construction or the staff of an adjacent hotel -- heard any noise late on Monday night. Even the dog reared by labourers of the building under construction did not bark.

"The dog barks even when I go to the cellar in the night. Police are saying thieves broke into the shop but the dog didn't make any sound last night," Vidyanand, security guard of the building, told The Hindu .

He was on duty at the building for the past three days as the regular guard Gangadhar went to his village. On Monday night, while Vidyanand slept as usual on the ground floor, some six labourers went up the terrace of the building to sleep. None of them heard anything.

Guard `baffled'

"If the offenders even passed by our building, the dog should have barked. But its silence baffles me," the guard wondered.

Mohd. Burahn, manager of Punjagutta Marvel Residency Hotel located beside the jewellery shop building, is also equally surprised. "We lock the grills at the reception after midnight and hence there is no question of outsiders going up from front side," he said. The hotel guard was awake till 1 a.m. and slept in the veranda. He too was oblivious of what happened next door.

Rajashekhar, Jana and Vijayender Reddy, belonging to Group Four Security Services, were on duty at the jewellery shop building from 7 p.m. on Monday to 7 a.m. on Tuesday. "It is a shock for us.

There were no suspicious persons around during the night. No noise was heard either," they said.

What baffled the police was the audacity of the offenders to strike at the shop located on the bustling Somajiguda-Punjagutta stretch. "Lots of software company vehicles move around," a police officer said.

Ledge on 3rd floor

Police believe the burglars jumped onto the terrace of the shop from a ledge on the third floor of the adjacent Punjagutta Marvel Residency hotel building.

Investigators found the hotel had a ledge on its third floor from which one could easily jump on to the top of the shop building. "We're yet ascertain how they managed to reach the third floor of the hotel without attracting attention of the hotel staff," detectives said.

They also believe the offenders did not take the same path on their retreat because the gate at the hotel entrance was locked during the nights. Burglars going up the shop building using a rope, which was found hanging down, was ruled out since no marks were seen on the walls.

"However, they must have used the rope to exit. They probably wore hand gloves not to get hurt while sliding down the rope," a police officer said. Detectives believe the thieves did a recce of the area. Lack of security alarm on the rear side shutter on first floor turned to be advantageous for them.

Details of the persons who checked into the lodge in the past few days are being verified. It is learnt that two persons stayed in a room on the second floors from May 12 to May 14. "Both of them were lean and rarely spoke to us. They used to go out in the morning and return in the night," a hotel worker said.

Though concrete evidence was yet to be found, police believe the same gang could be responsible for burgling the Tara Pearls Jewellers shop on Abids main road two months ago. Similar equipment including crowbars, hacksaw blades - small and big - and screwdrivers were left behind by thieves at both shops. A drilling machine was also recovered from Alukkas shop.

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